


My Enemies

by sophinisba



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Academia, Bisexual Character, Canonical Character Death, Drabble Sequence, F/F, Gen, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Resentment, Science, Teacher-Student Relationship, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 01:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: The multi-verse is a total mindfuck, especially for bisexuals.





	My Enemies

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an extra treat for someone, but when I went to post it I realized it didn't fit their request as well as I'd hoped. So here's an extra gift for the community!

The multi-verse is a total mindfuck, especially for bisexuals. May's known that since the seventies. Especially for brilliant bisexual women physicists, honestly. Like it's not enough to find out there's a version of you who didn't listen to the male professors who wrote you off, a version who got tenure at Cal Tech, a version who uses superpowers to fight crime after getting bitten by a radioactive spider. Turns out there's also a version –– in fact _thousands of versions of May_ –– who came out in college and never looked back. Married the women of their dreams. _Fuck_ that. Fuck knowing.

*

May loves her husband, and the sex isn't bad. She loves her nephew and misses his parents. She loves physics. She... _likes_ her job, okay? Yeah, it's sort of embarrassing to be teaching high school with a doctorate, but it's 2002 and magnet schools are the big thing and they've got some of the most brilliant teenagers in New York City and the world. Including Olivia fucking Octavius who, on the first day of class when May tells them to call her Doctor Parker, turns to her friend and says, "What kind of self-respecting academic takes her husband's last name?" 

*

Fuck Liv Octavius. Fuck kids these days, coming out in high school, getting internships at places like Alchemax, all the opportunities May never had (_this_ version of May, in this backward fucking verse). Even Peter can be a little shit sometimes, and she loves him like a son (like the son she had in some universes, or the one she never had but sometimes adopted in those other universes where she'd followed her baby dyke heart). Kids these days drive May crazy. Acting like it's easy, you just have to believe in yourself. Acting like they don't owe anyone anything.

*

Fucking Olivia sends an email and a picture back to "the science department" at her old high school, because apparently college students these days are too busy doing research and riding bikes to write to the individual faculty members who wrote the letters of recommendation that got them into Stanford. The girl in the picture could be May from 1970, down to the frizzy hair, the headband, and the smug grin. Just don't look into other dimensions, May thinks, sipping her coffee as she stares at the printout in the teachers' lounge. That shit'll knock the smirk off your face.

*

Some years later, May and Liv become Internet "friends", which means they never talk but May gets treated to many more pictures of Liv, often embracing beautiful companions of various genders. May lets the fantasies roll through her bitter old lady heart, no longer bothering to feel guilty. Liv Octavius is no one's victim, and May's got very few fucks left to give. Meanwhile, the Internet shows them each other's major life updates, like Liv's acceptance to the doctoral program in molecular biophysics at Columbia ("Congrats," May wrote) and Ben's inevitable but shocking, sudden violent death (no comment from Liv). 

*

The campus is a foreign country, unrecognizable from May's time there, but she makes her way to the room in the invite. Liv greets her from the podium with a quiet, "Doctor Parker," before launching into a magnificent defense. "Congrats, Doctor Octavius" May will say afterwards. They shake hands and May understands that she's not alone. Liv's seen them all too, the universes where they never met and the ones where they're together (where Ben is still dead, but it doesn't tear at May's soul). "Thanks, May," the villain says with a knowing grin. "I wouldn't be here without you."


End file.
